November 9th, 2009, Germany celebrated the 20th anniversary of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, and even the BBC takes up the story to ask about the changes brought about on jazz through these political developments (BBC).

Berlin, being the hot spot for jazz in Germany, took the lead in spreading jazz throughout Europe. While the end of the wall marked the re-unification of Germany, their role in the unification of Europe through jazz is not to be overlooked.

Saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, a key figure in European free jazz

Jazz In Europe?

Jazz was not so important to a lot of people in East Germany immediately after the wall came down and that it took a few years until the East German jazz scene picked up again. The Western free improvisation scene was of great importance for East German musicians, and when East and West German played together in official concerts in the German Democratic Republic, there always had to be musicians present from other countries so that it didn’t seem like a reunification of Germany on stage.

The Berlin jazz scene became one of the most vivid European scenes in recent years in which musicians from all over the world come together and East or West no longer are categories. Julian Joseph, reporter of the BBC, talked to trombonist Jiggs Whigham about his time with the RIAS Big Band and his experiences in 1990s Berlin, commenting on the difference time can make.

One effect of the political changes definitively was the establishment of a new market for jazz. Only 15 or 20 years ago (till shortly after “Die Wende”, the fall of the Iron Curtain), Europeans competed mostly with American musicians. Now they compete with other Europeans as well. Public funding and subsidies more and more become investments in cultural export in order to strengthen the national position within the growing European market. It’s a development that one may or may not like but cannot ignore, not even in the jazz world.

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